


come in from the cold

by Kaesa



Series: Kaesa's Whumptober 2019 fics [7]
Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Huddling For Warmth, Hurt/Comfort, Hypothermia, M/M, Masturbation, Pining, Whumptober 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-20
Updated: 2019-10-20
Packaged: 2020-12-27 04:40:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21112784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kaesa/pseuds/Kaesa
Summary: One extremely cold January day, Aziraphale finds Crowley unconscious on his doorstep.





	come in from the cold

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Whumptober 2019, for the prompt "trembling."

It was a few days past the new year, and Aziraphale was absolutely, definitely going to open his bookshop any year now, only he still had to really, properly decide which of his books he was willing to part with and which he was not. He had gone through them all three times, and each time he had put them all into the latter category, and he was beginning to get frustrated both with himself and with the books, and also with the general concept of bookselling.

Perhaps, he thought, not for the first time... perhaps he just had to buy more books. Ones he might be willing to sell. Ideally for a higher price, but being willing to part with them at all would be a step in the right direction at this point.

It was in this frame of mind that he had spent the first days of 1795, and it was in this frame of mind that he set off on an excursion to the nearest bakery, so he could not entirely be blamed for not particularly watching where he stepped until he had tripped and fallen flat on his face into the street.

Aziraphale struggled to his feet, shivering. It was cold enough outside, but snow and mud were soaking through his clothes, and he was about to be very annoyed with the idiot who'd left something right in front of his door, until he really looked at the something, and realized that an idiot had left _himself _right in front of his door, and that idiot was Crowley.

He bent over Crowley, who was curled up into himself and did not appear to be conscious. "Crowley? Crowley! Wake up!" Crowley didn't move, or respond in any way, and Aziraphale's heart sank. Perhaps he'd been too late; perhaps, even now, Crowley was filling out endless reams of paperwork to get a new body issued, and Aziraphale wouldn't see him again for decades.

Which would be fine, of course it would be fine, it wasn't as though they were even _friends,_ really, only Crowley was... nice to have around, and the last time they'd seen each other he _had _saved Aziraphale from the guillotine.

Aziraphale dragged him into the shop, and waved away the stacks of books with one hand so he wouldn't trip over any of them in an effort to deal with whatever stupid thing Crowley had done this time. He looked... well. He looked _dead,_ but Aziraphale could find no wounds or bruises on him, and Aziraphale tried to have hope. But it was __very__ cold outside, and Crowley was, on some level, still a snake.

He wasn't sure what you were supposed to do with a snake that had let itself get too cold, but he'd seen enough humans in this condition to have a vague sort of idea as to what to do. Aziraphale carried him upstairs to the little flat that had come with the shop. He had hemmed and hawed about furnishing it -- it would be so nice to have extra space to store his books, on the one hand, but on the other hand having living quarters in his shop would add _authenticity _to it, and also, reading in bed was cozy.

Today, Aziraphale was relieved that being cozy had won out over ruthlessly earmarking all available space for books, although certainly one side of the bed was still reserved for books. Aziraphale lay Crowley down on the clear side of the bed and waved a hand at the books, which piled themselves neatly onto the floor.

He carefully removed Crowley's dark glasses from his face, and set them down on the dresser. Then, averting his eyes, he miracled Crowley's cold, wet clothes away.

(It would occur to him, later, that he could have just miracled Crowley's clothes clean and dry, but what had been done had been done, and if Crowley had had any complaints about this, he never brought them up to Aziraphale.)

He covered Crowley with the blanket, changed his own clothes into a more comfortable nightshirt, and crawled into the bed next to him.

Aziraphale had, over the millennia, had quite a lot of thoughts about Crowley's body; had witnessed it in various states of undress and in myriad fashions. He had come to the conclusion that __either __Crowley had some sort of terrible demonic allure that made Aziraphale keep noticing the sway of his hips, the long, long legs, the slanted smile, and a thousand other little things -- __or__ there was something badly wrong with Aziraphale as an angel.

Now, however, the thing he noticed most about Crowley's body was that it was _ridiculously, absurdly cold _and not at all pleasant to have pressed up against him, despite many fevered fantasies to the contrary. Aziraphale began to shiver. He'd left the fire unlit, because he'd seen humans react badly to being warmed up too quickly, but surely all would be for nothing if _he _were to become too chilled to properly care for Crowley. So he lit the fire, crawled back into the bed, and tried to concentrate on _The Tempest._

Some time later, he noticed that Crowley was shivering too. This, he decided to take as a good sign. "Crowley?" he asked.

"Mnnnh," said Crowley.

"Well, that's more coherent than you've been the past few hours," said Aziraphale.

Crowley rolled over and clung to him, burying his face in Aziraphale's neck. Aziraphale sighed, and kept reading. Caliban was about to find Trinculo and Stephano, after all.

All was well through the end of Act 2, but halfway through Miranda and Ferdinand's declarations of love, Crowley _licked him._ This, Aziraphale could have tolerated, but he was less prepared for Crowley flailing and trying to crawl away from him. "Nnh, no, no no no," he said, his eyes wide. Crowley's eyes, unmasked, were very expressive, and currently they were full of terror.

"Crowley, what's wrong?" Aziraphale asked.

Crowley was still shivering, and he looked around wildly. "Don't, don't sssmite me, pleasse, 'mnot, not worth sssmiting," he mumbled.

"Don't be ridiculous, I wouldn't _smite _you. Crowley!" Crowley was still trying to get away from him, although he was, uncharacteristically, moving very slowly. Aziraphale sighed and got out of the bed. "Look, I'm all the way over here," he said, holding his hands up, and Crowley stilled.

Aziraphale decided that Crowley could use a little more warmth now, and made the fire a bit bigger. (He was so glad he didn't have to worry about tricky things like rearranging firewood, or even relighting fires. He'd never got the hang of all that nonsense.) He then went off to find another blanket.

When he returned, Crowley had fallen off the other side of the bed and appeared to be having trouble getting to his feet. Aziraphale sighed, wrapped Crowley in the blanket, and dumped him unceremoniously back onto the bed. "Crowley, please, just stay there, I won't -- I won't touch you if you'd rather I didn't, but I certainly won't smite you."

"But you're... 'n angel," Crowley said, with great difficulty. He tried half-heartedly to get his arms and legs out of the confines of the blanket, and then gave up.

"Goodness, am I really?" Aziraphale asked. He pulled the blanket over Crowley. He was clearly addled from the cold. Poor thing.

"Ssssmell like one," said Crowley, with every appearance of earnestness.

"Well, that doesn't mean I'm going to smite you," said Aziraphale. He went to sit in the armchair by the fire and opened his book again.

"Promissse?" Crowley asked.

"Promise -- of course, of course I promise, whatever you like, Crowley."

"And," said Crowley, gravely. "And, and you'll leave him alone too?"

"Leave who alone?" Did Crowley have an invisible friend now?

"Azssira -- Azirrr -- you know who I mean," said Crowley. "Leave him alone. Or elssse." He was trying very hard to look threatening, Aziraphale could tell, but it was difficult for him to look threatening rolled up in a blanket like that. And also, Aziraphale knew his 'trying very hard to look threatening' face too well to be remotely intimidated.

"Oh, Crowley," sighed Aziraphale.

"Promissse!" insisted Crowley.

"I do, I absolutely promise to leave Aziraphale alone, and not to smite you," said Aziraphale. He tried to sound like he took this promise seriously; he didn't want Crowley to worry.

"Good," said Crowley. He managed to get out of his blankety confinement after a few minutes, but did not try to escape again, and soon he was asleep.

Eventually Aziraphale decided it would probably be fine to sneak under the covers again, and, well, it had been a long few days, and he was very tired from hauling Crowley all over the shop, and it was quite nice under the blankets now Crowley was only moderately chilly and not a man-shaped icicle. He was still shivering, but not as badly, and Aziraphale no longer feared for his life. So he felt like it would probably be all right to close his eyes a little bit, just for a few moments.

When next he awoke, Crowley was clinging to him, as before, although he was a good deal warmer. His breath was warm against Aziraphale's neck, and that felt quite nice. One of Crowley's legs was hooked around one of his, and that was also lovely. And pressing into the back of his thigh was...

Was...

Aziraphale opened his eyes. He had never been so horribly, mortifyingly awake in his life.

"_Angel,_" muttered Crowley sleepily, and nestled against him, and Aziraphale's body was awake in an entirely different way, and he wanted Crowley so very, very much. Carefully, he extricated himself from the bed and Crowley's arms, and sat on the side of the bed. He tried to think of how Crowley would react if he knew that Aziraphale found his sleeping, half-addled form _arousing,_ but all he could think of were Crowley's eyes opening and his pupils going wide and interested, of his hot breath on Aziraphale's neck, and his warm mouth, and _oh._

Aziraphale, feeling terribly guilty, took himself in hand and let himself think about Crowley -- Crowley panting on top of him, deep inside him, long fingers digging into Aziraphale's hips; Crowley spreading his legs and begging for Aziraphale to fuck him, the harder the better; Crowley on his knees with his lips around Aziraphale's cock, taking him in greedily. He whimpered, and pressed his free hand over his mouth to keep from crying out, and came to the thought that even now, Crowley might wake up and draw Aziraphale into his lap and stroke his cock while whispering "_Angel,_" in his ear just as he had before.

When he was done, he miracled away the mess, and wished he could miracle the shame of it away too. He looked back at Crowley, who appeared to be sound asleep, and was terribly relieved, and horribly guilty. He dressed, tended to the fire, and hung Crowley's wet things in front of it to dry.

Then, needing some distraction from the problem that was Crowley lying naked in his bed, he returned to his task of sorting the books out.

Several hours later, Crowley came down the stairs, fully dressed and looking a bit sheepish.

"Ah, there you are," said Aziraphale, trying not to go pink at the sight of him. He didn't know, Aziraphale was sure of it. He didn't know, because he was still here. "You were in a pretty bad way when I found you."

"I'm. Yes. I. Sorry about all that," said Crowley, eyes darting round the shop. "I just. The, er, the cold sort of." He made a gesture that was as animated as it was unenlightening. "I didn't quite realize how much it'd slow me down. I was out daring people to run across the Thames when I started feeling woozy, and your place was closer than mine. You look busy, though; I'll get out of your --"

"No, no," said Aziraphale, standing. "You're not going into that dreadful cold unaccompanied just yet. You mustbe more careful, Crowley; I think you might've discorporated if I hadn't found you in time!"

"Well. Least I'd have been someplace warm," Crowley pointed out. But his face softened. "Thank you, angel."

Aziraphale did go pink at that. "I. Well. It was my good deed of the day. Now, let's get some warm food in you," he said.

Crowley allowed himself a little smile. "If you like. But, ah... I found my other clothes; where'd you put my glasses?"

"Ah." Aziraphale miracled them into his hand, and Crowley allowed him to set them back onto his face. "There you go. Good as new, I hope."

"Excuse me," said Crowley, mildly insulted. "_Bad _as new."

"Yes, of course," said Aziraphale, amused. He nodded at the door. "Shall we?"

"I'll try not to pass out this time," said Crowley. 

**Author's Note:**

> January 1795 had the coldest average temperature on record in London. To be honest it doesn't seem very cold to me (-3.1 C/26 F) but I am willing to grant that if you're not prepared for that, or if you happen to be a snake who gets all wrapped up in trying to tempt people to do stupid things on a frozen river, it could certainly be an issue.
> 
> Also, honestly, I'll do anything for a huddling-for-warmth fic.


End file.
